Xu Zhuohua has truly and completely collapsed.
It wasn't just a common headache or fever. Doctor Liu came to take her pulse, and looking at her lifeless appearance on the bed, he stroked his beard and sighed, saying that it was a mental illness, a demon in her heart that had entered her bones.
The mouthful of blood she vomited was so bright red it was almost blinding. Doctor Liu shook his head and said, "That's not blood. It's all the energy that Xu Zhuohua has been holding onto for over a decade. It all dissipated in that one mouthful."
Indeed, Cheng Muyun has lost that spirit, and now Xu Zhuohua is in the same situation.
She slept for three days straight.
For the past three days, Chen Hede has stayed by the bedside without leaving for a moment.
He held her cold hand and confessed repeatedly in her ear that he shouldn't have let her leave Xinhai City. He also prayed again and again, asking God to let her open her eyes.
He always believed that the root cause of Xu Zhuohua's illness was inextricably linked to Cheng Muyun.
After all, that was the person she held dear in her heart, the name she had uttered for half her life.
Now that Cheng Muyun has become so muddle-headed, committing murder, arson, and all sorts of evil deeds, and has lost his former sharpness, how could she not feel unsettled?
Perhaps it was disappointment, perhaps it was regret, but ultimately it was all for him that she ruined herself.
But he was terribly wrong.
It wasn't until he saw Xu Zhuohua's instant collapse upon hearing the news of Hu Moli's death that he realized that what had broken down this seemingly solid dam was never Cheng Muyun's daily despondency, but rather the sudden withering of Hu Moli's flower.
The sound was so crisp and painful that it shattered the last bit of support in Xu Zhuohua's heart.
He doesn't understand.
For Xu Zhuohua, Hu Moli was so wonderful.
In a few days, she will be going on a tour of Europe with Mei Heming, an opportunity that many women would dream of.
She was like a flower in full bloom, her eyes radiating vibrant light, but just as dawn was about to break, she withered unexpectedly.
Not only did he die suddenly, but he was also smeared with dirty water and left with an unclear and unjust reputation.
Such a bright flower, dying suddenly in its prime, who wouldn't feel sorry for it?
Mei Heming cried until his voice was hoarse, and he crumpled up his ship ticket to Europe, so the tour was naturally postponed indefinitely.
Xu Zhuohua, lying on the bed, trembled her eyelashes and a tear slid down her cheek, but she still did not wake up.
She probably saw Hu Moli smiling at her in a cheongsam in her dream, so vivid and bright, just like herself who once had expectations for the future.
Xu Zhuohua fell into a long dream.
In her dream, flames soared into the sky, and she clearly felt the excruciating pain of her skin being burned. In the last moment before her consciousness faded, she suddenly fell back into the familiar 21st century.
There was no hospital bed, no persistent high fever; it was just a common cold. She took a pill, slept, and the next day she went back to school with her backpack.
The history department's lecture hall was packed as usual. The professor with the receding hairline stood on the podium, speaking slowly as always. When he got excited, he would adjust his glasses and comment on historical events in heavily accented Mandarin.
"When we got to the part about Xinhai City," the professor said, flipping through his notes, then paused. "Actually, there was a Cheng Muyun ancestral hall in the old Xinhai City. That man had a bad reputation among the people and was called the 'Great Demon King,' but the inscription on the ancestral hall stele recorded some of the things he did behind the scenes. Unfortunately, later generations didn't believe it, and later, for some reason, they demolished the ancestral hall and smashed the stele."
Some people in the audience chuckled, but Xu Zhuohua remained frozen in her seat, her fingers gripping the pen tightly.
The professor adjusted his glasses, his voice deepening: "Students, remember, history is a one-dimensional thing. We didn't experience that era firsthand, so no one can say for sure what the truth is. You can believe history books, but you can't blindly believe them. You have to use your brains to think, analyze, and verify for yourself—"
Xu Zhuohua could no longer hear what was said after that.
Tears welled up unexpectedly, splashing onto the notebook and blurring the ink.
She covered her mouth, but suppressed sobs still escaped through her fingers, drawing the attention of her classmates.
My heart felt like it was being squeezed by something, a mix of sourness and pain. I cried until my breathing became choked with sobs, my throat was burning dry, but I couldn't stop.
She knew it was a dream, but she craved this moment of "reality".
But the scene before me gradually became transparent, the professor's voice grew fainter and fainter, and the figures of the students around me became as ethereal as smoke.
She panicked and reached out to grab the hem of the student in front of her, but her fingertips passed right through it and she didn't grab anything.
Dreams must eventually end.
Xu Zhuohua was awakened by a sharp pain in her chest.
It felt like there was hot cotton stuck in her throat. She wanted to cry out loud, but could only make hoarse sounds, her eyes red from holding it in.
When I suddenly opened my eyes, I saw the familiar white walls of the clinic, with half of a faded herbal medicine chart hanging on the wall, and a strong smell of medicine lingering in the air—where was the 21st-century lecture hall? It was clearly still this suffocating old time.
Two figures immediately approached.
Xinghua's eyes were red, and she kept crying as she held her hand; Chen Hede stood by the bed, his eyes filled with unconcealed tenderness, his jawline taut.
Doctor Liu stood a little further away, with the stream behind her. The child stared at her timidly with his big, dark eyes, as if he had been frightened by her silent struggle.
Xu Zhuohua raised her hand and wiped her face, cleaning up the remaining tear stains.
A barely audible sigh escaped her lips, and her body deflated instantly like a punctured balloon. Her limbs were so weak that she could only slump on the pillow, finding it difficult even to move her eyes.
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